Download textbook depictions of the fugitive slave act: a case for historical and

TEXTBOOK DEPICTIONS OF THE FUGITIVE
SLAVE ACT: A CASE FOR HISTORICAL AND
MORAL LITERACY
Mark Pearcy, Rider University
Abstract
The textbook exerts a powerful influence over curricula, teacher lesson design, and student
historical literacy. This article examines how textbook narratives create opportunities for both
historical thinking and moral analysis of a major pre-Civil War event, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.
In this study, a two-method analysis is used—a historical narrative method, in which textbook
depictions of the Fugitive Slave Act are compared to relevant historiography, and a categorical
narrative method, in which these depictions are evaluated with an ethical framework, the “just
war” doctrine. Through these analyses, a case is made for both historical and moral literacy in
social studies instruction. Social studies educators know the value of historical literacy, the ability to analyze and interpret
historical evidence in a fluent, sophisticated manner. This is a skill that goes beyond information
knowledge, the hallowed “names, dates, and places” that form the basic vocabulary of such
literacy (Pearcy & Duplass, 2011). Students must be able to empathize with the unfamiliar
perspectives of historical figures and avoid reductive explanations for complex events. Though
teachers ultimately determine what happens in a classroom (Thornton, 1991), the textbook
represents topics and values our society considers essential. This article considers the manner in
which textbooks articulate historical and moral literacy, by evaluating narrative depictions of an
event that represents both—the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. In this study, I examine the moral
content of 10 U.S. history textbook narratives, using two different methodologies, a historical
narrative approach and a categorical analysis, the latter of which is derived from the “just war”
doctrine. I conclude by making recommendations about the value of the “just war” doctrine in
promoting both moral and historical literacy in the social studies.
Review of Literature
The skills invested in historical literacy emphasize collaboration, understanding, and diversity
of perspective. The effort to encourage these skills represents another value educators hold
dear—the belief that an uncritical perspective is intellectually and ethically shallow. As educators,
aiming to inculcate students with historical literacy is a major effort, but one that goes part and
parcel with promoting moral literacy.
Clifford (2011) describes “moral literacy” as a “minimal ability to make considered decisions
of right and wrong . . . a skill that most people today lack, to varying degrees” (p. 135). This is
analogous to historical literacy, in that the former informs the latter. We should consider, then,
the moral literacy—represented in the topics we choose to teach, like the Civil War—we are
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Textbook Depictions of the Fugitive Slave Act
promoting alongside historical thinking. We should also consider what we are asking students to
read so critically.
Despite the advent of new technology, the textbook is still the primary resource of content
knowledge available to teachers and students (Berson & Balyta, 2004). Even today, the textbook
exerts tremendous and often unquestioned influence over what happens in a social studies
classroom, encouraging a passive acceptance of its “official” status (Apple, 1993). The manner in
which textbooks depict historical events not only informs teacher choices in the classroom, but
also student beliefs.
All textbook analyses are limited by their focus on a narrative’s content, rather than its impact
on the student. Such a limitation is understandable; while content is inert and, to some degree,
measurable, student interaction with that content is ephemeral and abstract. While we can’t
know with certainty what a student may learn from these depictions, we can evaluate what
opportunities the text presents any reader for historical and moral literacy.
Promoting historical literacy represents the “ethical value of history teaching,” described by
Dewey (1909) in Moral Principles of Education: “When treated simply as a record of what has
passed and gone, [history] must be mechanical, because the past, as the past, is remote. Simply
as the past, there is no motive for attending to it” (p. 36). The “positive ethical import” of the
social studies can be found in what Dewey called “a genuine faith in the existence of moral
principles which are capable of effective application” (p. 57).
The framework used in this study, the “just war” doctrine, dates to early thinkers like Cicero
and Aristotle, and was systematized by the early Catholic Church. “Just war” asserts that for
war to be moral, it must be limited. This premise has become foundational to Western law
and philosophy over the past 1,500 years, evident today in most international law. The “just
war” doctrine includes three broad components: jus ad bellum, “justice before war”; jus in bello,
“justice during war”; and jus post bellum, “justice after war.” This study focuses on textbook
representations of jus ad bellum, specifically the issue of “just cause.”
“Just war” promotes historical literacy by encouraging students “to understand and interpret
past events” and to answer an essential question of historical inquiry: “Why did an individual
or group of people, given a set of circumstances, act in a certain way” (Yeager & Foster, 2001,
p. 15)? Barton and Levstik (2004) write that historical study necessarily includes a moral
component: “Although we may not often speak in terms of morality, we nonetheless expect
students to celebrate the good things in history and condemn the bad” (p. 91). One reason we
teach history is to encourage a proper path to the future, a set of behaviors that we consider
correct and virtuous. “Just war” doctrine is, ultimately, a framework that encompasses a moral
approach to war, and to life.
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The Study
I evaluated 10 textbook depictions of a historical event that represents a high level of both
historical and moral literacy—the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Understanding this event is
necessary for historical literacy, given its role as a contributing cause of the Civil War. Similarly,
the values implicit in teaching about this event represent the values we encourage in students.
The textbook is the primary device for encompassing explicit historical content and implicit
value judgments. A measurement of standard textbook depictions of this event, on both counts,
is warranted.
A measurement of historical literacy includes how textbooks allow students to engage in the
skills considered requisite for such literacy—analysis, evaluation, an emphasis on multiple
perspectives and accurate historical details. Measuring moral literacy, however, is more
difficult, especially considering the contentiousness of varying ethical beliefs. There are many
values, however, that are practically universal—honesty, fair play, and courage (Tuana, 2007).
In measuring the moral content of a given resource, it is important to avoid the tendency to
scrutinize it according to a singular or narrowly held perspective (much as educators would warn
students while promoting historical literacy). For this study, I evaluated textbook depictions
from two different perspectives—a historical interpretation, comparing textbooks to relevant
historiography, and a moral interpretation, comparing them to an ethical framework concerning
the moral nature of conflict, the “just war” doctrine.
Methodology
This study adopts two different methodologies. With a historical narrative analysis, textbook
accounts are compared to relevant historiographical works in the field. This method has several
advantages: it relies on the expertise of recognized historians, whose work sets the scope and
sequence of the analysis. With the second methodological approach, a categorical analysis,
textbook narratives are compared to preselected categories, which allow for a more balanced
focus on a textbook’s tone, structure, and style. Additionally, such an approach is free of the
linear and chronological restrictions of the first method. Categorical analyses are often critiqued
for excessive subjectivity, because the categories are selected by the researcher. This criticism is
mitigated in this study, because the components here were not arbitrarily chosen, but are instead
the result of sustained historical and moral scholarship in “just war” theory.
Textbook analyses vary in their sample sizes, some as few as five (Su, 2007; Watkins, 2008),
some much larger (e.g., Harrison-Wong, 2003; Tompkins, Rosen, & Larkin, 2006). This study’s
textbooks were produced by national publishers and have appeared on the adoption lists for
Texas, California, and Florida, the three states that are the most influential in the textbook
market (Ezarik 2005; Harrison-Wong, 2003). See Table 1, below:
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TABLE 1: TEXTBOOK SAMPLE LIST
PUBLISHER
DATE
TITLE
Pearson/Prentice Hall
2007
The American Journey
Pearson/Prentice Hall
2008
The American Nation
Pearson/Prentice Hall
2007
America: Pathways to the Present
Pearson/Prentice Hall
2009
America: History of Our Nation
Pearson/Prentice Hall
2010
United States History
McDougal/Littel
2010
The Americans
Norton
2008
Give Me Liberty!
Pearson/Prentice Hall
2010
Visions of America
Houghton Mifflin
2006
American Pageant
Houghton Mifflin
2008
The Enduring Vision
For the historical narrative analysis, I relied on two major historiographical works of the era:
James McPherson’s This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War (2007) and Christopher
Olsen’s The American Civil War: A Hands-On History (2006). For the categorical narrative
approach, I focused on the most prominent component of jus post bellum, just cause. I conclude
by discussing my findings and making a recommendation about the value of the “just war”
doctrine in promoting both moral and historical literacy in the social studies.
Findings
Fugitive Slave Law: Historical Narrative Analysis. When California was admitted to the
Union as a free state in 1850, the South feared the resulting imbalance in the U.S. Senate. The
Compromise of 1850 was intended to forestall a descent into violence, and its most notorious
component was the Fugitive Slave Act. Technically only a revision of a 1793 law that upheld a
slaveowner’s right to recover fugitive runaways, the 1850 version provoked a vicious national
reaction in the North. Previously indifferent Northerners found themselves enraged by the
“Bloodhound Bill,” and Southerners were embittered by the North’s seeming refusal to carry out
the law properly. Though the law was not often enacted, the few widely publicized attempts and
captures, occasionally violent, made the Act one of the most important touchstones leading to
the Civil War.
Historians generally agree that the Act made secession and war more likely. McPherson (2007)
asserts that the new law strengthened federal power on behalf of a region that was historically
antagonistic to such an expansion: “In the name of protecting the rights of slaveowners, it
extended the long arm of federal law, enforced by marshals and the army, into Northern states to
recover escaped slaves and return them to their owners” (p. 9). Olsen (2006) also describes the
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Act’s immense reach: It “literally brought the issue [of slavery] to street corners in the North for
the first time” (p. 19).
McPherson (2007) points to the Act’s influence on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
which intensely personalized the fugitive debate. The book captivated Northerners and was
bitterly resented by Southerners, who believed Northern abolitionists were aiding fugitive slaves
in escaping. This anger was still present when secession began: “In their ordinances of secession,
several Southern states cited Northern help to fugitives as one of the grievances that provoked
them to leave the Union” (p. 21). Olsen (2006) describes one such ordinance, the Georgia
Platform of 1850, in which delegates claimed “that upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive
Slave Bill by the proper authorities depends the preservation of our much beloved Union” (p. 17).
Textbook Depictions of the Fugitive Slave Act: Northern Reactions. Textbooks in this
sample cover the Fugitive Slave Act in impressive and often dramatic detail.
Visions of America (Keene et al., 2010) begins with a full-page political cartoon depicting the
standard abolitionist view of the law’s barbarity (see Figure 1):
The textbook’s description of the Act’s provisions is
blunt:
The act created a force of federal commissioners
who possessed broad powers to pursue and return
suspected escaped slaves to their owners. It also
permitted federal marshals to deputize private
citizens to assist in capturing fugitive slaves. Those
who refused to help were subject to fines and
imprisonment. Once apprehended, an accused fugitive
had no right to a jury trial. His or her fate was instead
decided by a federal commissioner who stood to earn
a fee of 10 dollars if he returned the accused to slavery
and only five if he released him or her. (p. 349)
Most textbooks include detailed descriptions of the
angry Northern reaction to the Act.
United States History (Lapansky-Werner et al.,
2010) asserts that “the anger was not restricted to
abolitionists; it extended to other Northerners who felt
forced to support the slave system” (p. 331). America:
Pathways to the Present (Cayton et al., 2007) represents
the Act as a fundamental flaw of the Compromise
Figure 1: “Effects of the Fugitive
of 1850: “[It] actually made the situation worse by
Slave Law,” from Visions of America
infuriating many Northerners . . . including Harriet
(Keene et al., 2010, p. 349)
Beecher Stowe, who expressed her outrage in her
book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (p. 359). America: History of
Our Nation (Davidson & Stoff, 2009) uses the heading “Compromises Fail” in describing the Act,
while The American Nation (Carnes et al., 2008) portrays “the sight of harmless human beings
being hustled off to a life of slavery disturbed many Northerners who were not abolitionists”
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(p. 350). The American Pageant (Kennedy et al., 2006) describes both the legal penalties faced by
“freedom-loving Northerners” if they helped runaways and the impact of the Act on provoking
general resistance:
So abhorrent was this “Man-Stealing Law” that it touched off an explosive chain reaction
in the North. Many shocked moderates, hitherto passive, were driven into the swelling
ranks of the antislaveryites. (p. 400)
Often, dramatic language is used to describe the Act’s impact on Northern Blacks. The American
Journey (Goldfield et al., 2007) asserts that “the Fugitive Slave Act brought the danger of slavery
much closer to [Northern Blacks]. . . . The lives that 400,000 Black Northerners had constructed,
often with great difficulty, appeared suddenly uncertain” (p. 392). The American Nation (Carnes
et al., 2008) is more evocative: “Something approaching panic reigned in the Black communities
of northern cities when slave hunters arrived to seize former slaves” (p. 350).
United States History (Lapansky-Werner et al., 2010) presented the danger of the law to freedmen:
“Some of the captured ‘fugitive slaves’ were really free people who had been kidnapped and sold
into slavery” (p. 333). The textbook includes a full-page graphic with references to the Act, the
Underground Railroad, and Harriet Tubman, set against a background image of the antislavery
newspaper The North Star (see Figure 2):
Textbook Depictions of the Fugitive Slave Act:
Southern Reactions. In contrast, many textbooks provide
descriptions of Southern anger over the Act’s impotence.
The Americans (Danzer et al., 2005) describes the
difficulties in reclaiming a runaway, given Northern legal
obstructions: “Northern lawyers dragged these trials out—
often for three or four years—in order to increase slave
catchers’ expenses. Southern slave owners were enraged by
Northern resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act” (p. 311).
Visions of America (Keene et al., 2010) describes Southern
expectations of the law’s enforcement:
Figure 2: United States History
Although the number of escaped slaves remained relatively
small . . . Southern slaveholders grew increasingly angry
over the unwillingness of Northerners to assist in the
return of their “property.” Especially galling were the
“personal liberty laws” passed by nine Northern states .
. . which prohibited the use of state officials or facilities
like courts and jails for the capture and return of escaped
slaves. With these precedents in mind, Southerners made
clear . . . that they expected Northerners to uphold the
law. (p. 349)
(Lapansky-Werner et al., 2010,
p. 333)
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The American Pageant (Kennedy et al., 2006) describes Southern resentment of “the moral
judgment” of abolitionists that “seemed, in some ways, more galling than outright theft. They
reflected not only a holier-than-thou attitude but a refusal to obey the laws solemnly passed by
Congress” (p. 395). The American Nation (Carnes et al., 2008) describes how “White Southerners
accused the North of reneging on one of the main promises made in the Compromise of 1850”
(p. 350). The American Pageant (Kennedy et al., 2006) portrays the South’s failed expectations:
TABLE 2: SELECT SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, HISTORICAL NARRATIVE ANALYSIS
HISTORICAL TOPIC AREA
TEXTBOOK NARRATIVE SAMPLE
Northern reaction to the Act
“Part of the Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Act,
actually made the situation worse by infuriating many
Northerners—including Harriet Beecher Stowe, who
expressed her outrage in her book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
(America: Pathways to the Present, p. 359)
“So abhorrent was this ‘Man-Stealing Law’ that it touched
off an explosive chain reaction in the North. Many shocked
moderates, hitherto passive, were driven into the swelling
ranks of the antislaveryites.” (The American Pageant, p. 400)
The Act’s threat to freedmen
“The Fugitive Slave Act brought the danger of slavery
much closer to home . . . The lives that 400,000 Black
Northerners had constructed, often with great difficulty,
appeared suddenly uncertain.” (The American Journey,
p. 392)
“Black Americans, of course, despised the law. Some of
the captured ‘fugitive slaves’ were really free people who
had been kidnapped and sold into slavery.” (United States
History, p. 333)
Southern reactions to the
Act’s passage
“The Southerners . . . were embittered because the
Northerners would not in good faith execute the law—the
one real and immediate Southern ‘gain’ from the Great
Compromise.” (The American Pageant, p. 400)
“To the slaveowners, the loss was infuriating, whatever the
motives. The moral judgments of the abolitionists seemed,
in some ways, more galling than outright theft. They
reflected not only a holier-than-thou attitude but a refusal
to obey the laws solemnly passed by Congress.”
(The American Pageant, p. 395)
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“The Southerners . . . were embittered because the Northerners would not in good faith execute
the law—the one real and immediate Southern ‘gain’ from the Great Compromise” (p. 400).
In terms of historical content, the narratives of the sampled textbooks are detailed and accurate
(see Table 2).
From one analytical standpoint, these textbooks would serve as useful resources for historical
literacy. For the moral content in these narratives, I turn to the categorical analysis.
Fugitive Slave Law: Categorical Analysis. When analyzing narratives with the “just war”
doctrine, some allowance should be made for textbooks’ inherent limitations. These are
American history textbooks, not political science or philosophy, and, obviously, they are not “just
war” treatises. More prosaically, textbooks only have so much space that may be dedicated to any
given topic. For the purposes of this study, the analysis will focus on one (and arguably, the most
important) component of jus ad bellum elements, just cause.
Just cause is a major component of “just war,” given that nations regularly appeal to the concept
in order to justify conflict. Whether or not such just cause existed is vital in depicting the Civil
War, and textbook narratives addressing it should be a fair subject for criticism.
Just cause typically includes self-defense from external attack, defense of others or the innocent,
or punishment for a grievous wrongdoing that remains uncorrected (Orend, 2006). Most
narratives contain detailed passages describing the Act’s impact on both the North and South.
United States History (Lapansky-Werner et al., 2010) and America: Pathways to the Present (Cayton
et al., 2007) both describe the anger felt in the North over the Act’s impact on everyday life, as
well as the moral outrage accompanying the “infuriating” incursions by slave catchers. United
States History (Lapansky-Werner et al., 2010) describes one tactic of resistance:
Northerners also resented what they saw as increasing federal intervention in the affairs
of the independent states. A few Northern states struck back, passing personal liberty
laws. These statutes nullified the Fugitive Slave Act and allowed the state to arrest slave
catchers for kidnapping. Many Northerners agreed with abolitionist William Lloyd
Garrison when he demanded “nothing less than . . . a Revolution in the Government of
the country. (p. 331)
One crucial element of just cause is whether or not a given act is threatening to the security of a
state or community. United States History (Lapansky-Werner et al., 2010) provides a compelling
illustration of Northern Black resistance, under a large heading in bold red font titled “Northern
Blacks Mobilize”:
In 1851, a small group of free African Americans gathered in a farmhouse in Christiana,
Pennsylvania. Heavily armed, they had come to protect several fugitives from their
Maryland master, who had brought a federal official to reclaim them. In the scuffle that
followed, the slave owner was killed. White bystanders refused to intervene to help the
slave-hunting party. Although more than 30 people were tried for the conspiracy, none
was found guilty. No one was tried for the murder of the slave owner. The “Christiana
Riot” was a dramatic enactment of a scene that was played out in many Northern
communities. (p. 333)
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Other textbooks, too, rely heavily on such personal anecdotes to illustrate the law’s upheaval,
though without explicit condemnation of the Act. The Enduring Vision (Boyer et al., 2008) tells
the story of Anthony Burns, a former slave who was captured and returned to the South, despite
an immense outcry in Massachusetts:
No witness would ever forget the scene. As five platoons of troops marched with Burns to
the ship, some 50,000 people lined the streets. As the procession passed, one Bostonian
hung from his window a black coffin bearing the words, “THE FUNERAL OF LIBERTY.”
Another draped an American flag upside down as a symbol that “my country is eternally
disgraced by this day’s proceedings.” (p. 401)
The text follows this with the compelling account of Margaret Garner, who, “about to be
captured and sent back to Kentucky as a slave, slit her daughter’s throat and tried to kill her
other children rather than witness their return to slavery” (p. 401). Give Me Liberty! (Foner,
2008) includes three such stories, presenting them as “a series of dramatic confrontations”—the
Garner story, the “Christiana Riot,” and the 1851 capture of a slave named Jerry in Syracuse,
New York.
All of the stories are powerful indicators of the Northern sense of just cause. From the Southern
perspective, Visions of America (Keene et al., 2010) refers to the anger Southerners felt not only
over their belief that Northerners would not only fail to enforce the laws, but would also actively
impede them, primarily through the use of “personal liberty laws” (p. 349). The Enduring Vision
(Boyer et al., 2008) details the “frequent cold stares, obstructive legal tactics, and occasional
violence” Southerners came to expect on slave-catching missions (p. 401-402), while The
American Pageant (Kennedy et al., 2006) describes the “holier-than-thou attitudes” Southerners
encountered regarding their “peculiar institution” (p. 395).
Despite all this, there is a curious lack of vitality in these passages. At best, the narratives
displayed here highlight the Fugitive Slave Act as a contributing factor to the Civil War, but
there is no explicit moral condemnation of the Act, in spite of the depictions of “harmless
human beings” falling victim to brutal slave catchers, over the objections of “freedom-loving”
Northerners. In fact, the closest example of this is found in The American Pageant, which provides
the following analysis of the notorious law:
Beyond question, the Fugitive Slave Law was an appalling blunder on the part of the
South. No single irritant of the 1850s was more persistently galling to both sides, and
none did more to awaken in the North a spirit of antagonism against the South. . . . Delay
also added immensely to the moral strength of the North—to its will to fight for the
Union. In 1850, countless thousands of Northern moderates were unwilling to pin the
South to the rest of the nation with bayonets. But the inflammatory events of the 1850s
did much to bolster the Yankee will to resist secession, whatever the cost. (p. 400-401)
On the whole, textbook narratives don’t present a coherent moral account of justifications for
war, North or South. At best, the textbooks hint at the national calamity looming in the future,
but there is no explicit discussion of the Act’s potential status as a moral foundation for Southern
secession. The moral content in these textbooks, in terms of the “just war” component of just
cause, is inferential and diffuse.
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Conclusions and Implications
The standard chronological approach to American history often leads to an emphasis on
“coverage” and a struggle between balancing depth and breadth in the curriculum (Pearcy &
Duplass, 2011). Teachers are faced with a crush of topics and limited time. It is little wonder
then, that many teachers, when teaching about war, may resist spending time on the events
of the war itself, and instead focus on causes and consequences of the conflict. The “just war”
approach has particular utility here, in giving teachers the flexibility to choose specific events,
TABLE 3: SELECT SUMMARY OF FINDINGS: CATEGORICAL ANALYSIS
“JUST WAR” COMPONENT
TEXTBOOK NARRATIVE SAMPLE
Just cause (self-defense from
Northerners also resented what they saw as increasing
federal intervention in the affairs of the independent states.
A few Northern states struck back, passing personal liberty
laws. These statutes nullified the Fugitive Slave Act and
allowed the state to arrest slave catchers for kidnapping.
(United States History, p. 331)
external attack; defense of others
from external attack; protection
of innocents from brutal,
repressive regimes; punishment
for a grievous wrongdoing that
remains uncorrected)
[On the apprehension of Anthony Burns] “No witness
would ever forget the scene. As five platoons of troops
marched with Burns to the ship, some 50,000 people lined
the streets. As the procession passed, one Bostonian hung
from his window a black coffin bearing the words, ‘THE
FUNERAL OF LIBERTY.’” (The Enduring Vision, p. 401)
[On the death of Margaret Garner] “About to be captured
and sent back to Kentucky as a slave, [she] slit her
daughter’s throat and tried to kill her other children rather
than witness their return to slavery.” (The Enduring Vision,
p. 401)
themes, or results of a given conflict and then apply the relevant components of “just war.” In
teaching the Civil War, for example, a teacher may choose to focus his/her instruction through
the concept of the “minimally just community” (Orend, 2006, p. 35): Did the Confederacy, as
an incipient nation, satisfy the three basic conditions of a moral state: Was it recognized by the
international community? Did it avoid violating the rights of other nations? And did it make
“every reasonable effort to satisfy the human rights of its own citizens” (p. 35-36)? With this
concept, a teacher can approach the dominant themes of the Civil War—e.g., was it a war or a
rebellion—rather than scramble at its edges.
Teachers, by necessity, must often be concerned with the prosaic, a fact that applies especially to
the role of the textbook. Despite researchers’ advocacy of instructional technology as a potential
replacement for traditional texts, it is clear that teachers will give them up only when a better,
more readily available alternative exists (Schug, Western, & Enochs, 1997). Textbooks are
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deserving of much of the criticism aimed at them—but the solution that is most often suggested,
simply getting rid of them, is at odds with the reality of most classrooms. What is necessary,
then, is not a wholesale abandonment of textbooks, but a set of tools that enable a more
meaningful use of them.
An emphasis on the “just war” doctrine allows teachers to plan lessons not just using the textbook
as a resource or compendium of fact, but as the subject of student scrutiny. “Just war” is a
framework against which to judge the sources we give to our students—an especially valuable
consideration, given the generally unquestioning acceptance of such texts by those who use them
most. A teacher could ask students to examine their own textbooks for moral content, for how
they might depict a given conflict or the decisions that may lead to one. Textbooks, as we often
assert, are not repositories of disembodied objectivity, but quite the opposite—in truth, “the
characteristics of the finished solutions are determined not only by its components, but also by
the hand that stirs it” (Paxton, 1999, p. 319).
But it would be a mistake to merely substitute “just war” with the textbook as the voice of
authority. We live in a world where state-versus-state warfare is at an all-time low (“Human
Security Report 2009-2010: The Causes of Peace and the Shrinking Costs of War,” 2010),
and conceivably, the moral restrictions on certain types of conduct have changed as well. The
conditions of “just war” should be critiqued just as sharply. Students can use “just war” to
consider not only the moral status of historical action, but of contemporary policies that may
lead to conflict. Is the doctrine of preemption, seemingly at odds with the precept of self-defense
(which is, in truth, the moral compass of “just war”) ever defensible? It is a subject of nearconstant debate among “just war” theorists, and it certainly should be among our citizens and
our students. Social studies classes are an appropriate venue for such debate.
If the value of education can be measured in our students’ ability to live meaningful lives, it is
vital that we equip them with the skills to make ethical decisions. And despite war’s horrors,
there may be no more moral enterprise in human society than war, a conflict begun, at a
minimum, to right a perceived wrong. A nation of informed and thoughtful citizens is crucial
to the avoidance of war where possible and its ethical prosecution when inescapable.
An important distinction is necessary—the use of a moral and empathetic tool, such as “just
war,” should not be considered a form of indoctrination. “Just war” is not pacifistic, unilaterally
opposed to all violent conflict for any reason; neither is it militaristic, accepting or even
endorsing the necessity of war. The empathetic nature of “just war” makes it most valuable as a
teaching tool. It is the difference between moral education and moral propaganda.
As much as we emphasize historical literacy, we should also remember that social studies,
more than other subjects, deals regularly with moral issues. If the resources we use are morally
indistinct, the teachers and students who use them may be unable or unwilling to critically
analyze the impact of national policies, both historical and modern. What this study has
indicated is that textbooks contain moral content, but rarely encourage students to scrutinize the
moral character of historical events. The ability to make thoughtful, informed judgments is at the
heart of historical literacy. The ability to make ethical decisions is central to moral literacy and is
just as vital for students.
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